Cake Batter & Crumbs: Brown Sugar Pound Cakes

Saturday morning we headed out to the Amish farms around our area to do a little produce and goodie shopping. Pennsylvania is known for having a large population of Amish, and we have a fair amount in my area here. We first stopped at King's Country store, which has a lot of different spices, flours, and locally produced cheeses, milk, and meats. Then we headed to a little road side stand which had huge baskets of hot and sweet peppers, tomatoes, watermelons and cantaloupes. Inside they had freshly baked bread, pies, homemade potato chips, woopie pies and a large selection of homemade jams. I wish I would have had my camera, but I believe I heard somewhere that it can be insulting to some Amish if you take pictures, so it was probably for the best!

Anyway, we bought some watermelons, peach jam, and grabbed a couple of woopie pies for the road. The woopie pies were gone before we even got back to the main road!

When we got home, I was in the mood to bake. I started flipping through my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook and decided on brown sugar pound cakes. It was one of the easier recipes in the book and the idea of spreading some of my newly procured peach jam on it sealed the deal.

The recipe was simple; we had most of the ingredients already in the pantry or fridge. I was curious how it would taste because the only sugar in the recipe is the brown sugar. I tasted the batter and it was so good that I almost got addicted to it. To me it tasted like a cake batter of chocolate chip cookie dough, minus the chocolate part -- if that makes any sense.

The recipe made 2 loaf size pound cakes. I ended up giving one to my parents and kept the other at our house. In the end, the pound cakes were really great with a completely different flavor than any other cake I've had. It wasn't quite like a spice cake, but the molasses in the brown sugar gave it a subtle flavor like one. The peach jam was a perfect accompaniment. I may have to head out there again to get more soon...

Brown Sugar Pound Cakes

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 ¼ cups packed light-brown sugar
5 large eggs
¾ cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Butter two 8 ½ -4 ½-inch loaf pans; set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add eggs one at a time, beating until combined.

Add the reserved flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour; beat until combined. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, and smooth with an offset spatula.

Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until cakes are golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the centers comes out clean, about 1 hour. Transfer pans to a wire rack to cool completely. Cakes can be kept at room temperature, wrapped well in plastic for up to 3 days.